I ambush, SnD, RS, then SS until green, then spree. Once spree is over I pop adrenblades and immediately finisher.

I dunno, I disagree with you guys and agree with Mael. If I do his opener, I have all the rppm procs up for KS and part of AR/SB and my AoC proc (assuming I don't get rng'd badly) falls off pretty much when AR ends with sometimes maybe 2 seconds left. I'm not sure exactly how long you guys are taking to do what you suggest, but you're barely going to if at all get rppm procs up for your AR/SB and your AoC proc will almost definitely expire before AR/SB ends.

Take Verain's, you aren't KS'ing until 6 seconds in because you are using 6 abilities on the gcd. When KS ends you will be 9.5 seconds in and have half a second left on your rppm procs from the pull. Your AR will drop at 24.5 seconds so if your AoC procs in the first 4.5 seconds (fairly likely), you don't have the AoC up for the full AR/SB either.

was thinking about the optimal opener lately, but one thing has always unclear for me
does killing spree benefit from slice and dice ? if yes then it should be casted before going into killing spree right after ambush, if not then might as well delay it n cast it when killing spree ends.
I open with Ambush -> Snd -> rvs -> if trinket procs then use killing spree , if not ss -> trinket probably proc by now, use killing spree

p.s i dropped shadow focus for nightstalker to avoid energy cap when opening, and i think it getting a cheap ambush off might not worth wasting the auto attack swings reset n stuff like main gauche procs, but who knows, i stopped using vanish totally when i can have 100% uptime on boss, only used vanish during times i am forced to stop attacking the boss.

Killing Spree should never be used without S&D up because you keep auto attacking while your killing spree is beeing used and you have a damage buf during spree, therefore the more autoatacks you get the better.

Your autoattacks continue unabated during spree- in fact, they are buffed by 50% from the spree. Since both blades and adren benefit your autoattacks (blades massively, adren by 20% multiplicative haste), turning on all three at once is the best way to get the most damage out of that three second window- but that's often not been the best way to maximize dps over the fight.

I dunno, I disagree with you guys and agree with Mael. If I do his opener, I have all the rppm procs up for KS and part of AR/SB and my AoC proc (assuming I don't get rng'd badly) falls off pretty much when AR ends with sometimes maybe 2 seconds left. I'm not sure exactly how long you guys are taking to do what you suggest, but you're barely going to if at all get rppm procs up for your AR/SB and your AoC proc will almost definitely expire before AR/SB ends.

I find this logic a lot more compelling now that I have a TED. However, my reasoning in general is this:

Every second you wait in blank is a second where you don't have green, a second where you don't have yellow instead of green, and on average hurts your red uptime in exchange for blank. I'm willing to bet that, say, the AoC proc is better off being powered into green, where it now is 10% more of a proc, and that the loss of those buffs on adrenblades in relatively lower....

But we're both just going with intuition and coming up with slightly different effects. Given that I have two trinkets, one of which begins as a double proc and then ramps down to nothing, I could easily buy that THAT would make a difference- or that ANY set of trinkets does that (exception: blades of renataki definitely rewards bigger burst at the tail, and prenerf it was my favorite trinket ever).

I think to actually figure this out, we'll either want a custom SimC profile set, or it's entirely likely that Aldrianna knows this. I post there less now that I can't get to EJ from work, but the website is still just as solid.

Rogues I respect in these forums are saying combat is underrated this tier, but I just cannot get the numbers like I can with A. My S numbers are higher, but I would expect that (my S rotation is pretty tight, plus night elf). My ilvl as combat is a bit higher (I have two reg mode weapons this tier, a combat and a dagger, so combat uses both, but mutilate and sub use a heroic tot offhand). It could definitely be my rotation, but I'm filling all the globals and it seems like I'm generally running stuff mostly correct (aka, I get a lot of uses of cooldowns, don't sit on them, etc.). I think I'm missing something, and maybe it's just gear, but I'm in mostly normals for this tier now and I just don't think that's it, unless heroic is some magic breakpoint (shouldn't be). Have aoc, have 2 pc.... Grrr.

It could just be that combat is harder to play, but I mean... it's not like I'm fresh at it. Annoying. Anyway, it's not just you who can't get the numbers to happen, but I think we're likely both making the same mistake.

Verain: Check your stat scaling. For example, my rogue's haste EP is quite high (I'm at almost 2.1EP for haste according to shadowcraft). If you have a high haste EP and not much haste on gear, it can be pretty limiting.

For reference, my haste EP is high enough that the quilen hide boots I have (the crafted 522, upgraded to 530 of course), the optimal gemming is straight haste and ignore the 120 mastery socket bonus. Also the 480 haste JC gems provide a higher EP than the 320 agi ones (since my haste EP is > 2/3 of the agi EP).

I will check later and see what it looks like when regemmed- because I play all specs I tend towards Agi/Mastery gems in yellow, Agi in red, and Agi/Hit in blue. I wouldn't be surprised to find out that these should be like Agi/Haste, Haste, Haste, or something (depending on socket bonus) for combat, but I would be surprised if this was hurting my damage that much. Still it could be.

Also to note, I am currently using a warforged dagger for my OH, Is that better than a 540 flex mace from Iron jug?

Armory Link below

From what I've seen is that they're about the same really just want the higher ilv in there. Combat was normalized to gain the same benefit from whatever speed off hand you use. I think really the only differences are slower off hand gives bigger KsP damage while faster off hand gives more poison procs. Shadowcraft has daggers as higher dps over all but at least for me the difference between is pretty small. And on a personal note having 2 weapons that match I find more visually appealing than a slow weapon/dagger.

Originally Posted by Verain

I will check later and see what it looks like when regemmed- because I play all specs I tend towards Agi/Mastery gems in yellow, Agi in red, and Agi/Hit in blue. I wouldn't be surprised to find out that these should be like Agi/Haste, Haste, Haste, or something (depending on socket bonus) for combat, but I would be surprised if this was hurting my damage that much. Still it could be.

Shadowcraft seems to bounce back and forth between agi and agi/haste gems depending on what gear you have. A rogue friend of mine was complaining that in the span of one week he had to completely regem his gear 3 times from a haste building to agi and then back to haste. But a lot of the times the difference between like agi in red and agi/haste in red I've never seen more than a couple thousand dps at the most difference to only a couple hundred at the lower end but using mastery as combat seems not as good. But really with combat from my stand point where I tried to be cheap and just go with an agi agi/haste build combat just felt better and felt like I was performing better when I fully committed to the spec and went the full haste gemming like shadowcraft says. Combat definitely has a much better flow to it with high haste level.